A thread for discussing all things Stackable Taboo related. This does not mean Stackable Taboos will be added to the Realms of Chaos either now, in the future, or ever, it only means that it is an interesting topic worthy of further examination.

Really wished this idea was played with more in the start. I remember Julian being quoted about taboos as being that thing to add to the game and switch things up in a way that suited chaos' gameplay....I'm under the impression that he had this idea of customizing and stacking taboos in mind, but didn't have the time to implement it.

That said, regarding realms, I think that if there was a way to factor it into the citadels and reinforcements dynamic (instead of mercs, sometimes a taboo is casted that interferes only with the player, ideally the AI would know to cast taboos that complement the lord's equipment)

Otherwise, being able to better customize taboos in the realm editor would also be nice.

anjovi wrote:sometimes a taboo is casted that interferes only with the player, ideally the AI would know to cast taboos that complement the lord's equipment)

This exists in the new Custom Matches that Demigods can create; effectively in the Realm Battle you'd be setting a Taboo for just one Team; the Players. Personally I don't think doing this as a Spell is feasible as it would likely require some sort of new GUI element or Special Effect to indicate its activation. However, as a fixed option from the Realm Editor I can imagine it could be done… but where the steaming blobs of goo would you put it as an option? Perhaps have two drop drown menus on the Taboo dialogue box? One for '2 Team Taboos' and one of 'Player Team Taboo?'. Could we do 3 drop downs you reckon? 'AI Team,' 'Player Team', 'Both Teams?' Sometimes an AI only Taboo might be useful to force the AI to follow a particular strategy more; eg to increase the rate of Law creature available to them. Just my thoughts.

Yeah, I think you should be able to stack taboos for both the AI and the player in realms. It'd give a lot more control to the realm designer. Same goes for reinforcements, I've never liked that they have to be set across the board, rather than for each AI opponent on an individual basis. You should ideally be able to say 'this opponent is going to be starting with x, y, or z creatures on the board' and then hard set for each AI.

As far as options for realm editor, I'd simply go for:
1)Click on Taboo button
2)Click on Tile to place/edit taboo
3)Have a pop up similar to custom match lobby that lets you simply set all of the things you'd want like taboos, objectives, rewards, etc.

Judging from what i've seen in custom game options, taboos are a pretty viable way of stacking things in the AI's favor. It also does it in a way that really suits chaos' game mechanics (It plays off of the spell casting aspect of the game) To me it makes sense that AI would cast taboos as a citadel spell. Perhaps the players could get the ability to cast taboos as well, if they captured a citadel (to help their villages defend against wizards)

SpiteAndMalice wrote:Yeah, I think you should be able to stack taboos for both the AI and the player in realms. It'd give a lot more control to the realm designer. Same goes for reinforcements, I've never liked that they have to be set across the board, rather than for each AI opponent on an individual basis. You should ideally be able to say 'this opponent is going to be starting with x, y, or z creatures on the board' and then hard set for each AI.

Regarding this.....that'd be golden! Have a reinforcement set on a global scale, and then on the lord editor, have a reinforcement menu that ignores that global one, so you can set it on a lord by lord basis as well as a global if you chose to.

anjovi wrote:As far as options for realm editor, I'd simply go for:
1)Click on Taboo button
2)Click on Tile to place/edit taboo
3)Have a pop up similar to custom match lobby that lets you simply set all of the things you'd want like taboos, objectives, rewards, etc.

I like the sound of that a lot. So, as a first step you could do something like this for the menu?…

Taboo 1 -----------| Taboo 2
On Enemy Team -----| On Enemy Team
On Player Team ----| On Enemy Team

Or similar. I think such a thing should be relatively easy to implement as all the needed GUI and code elements already exist in some form in the game. Not sure if you agree, but I wouldn't mind seeing this method of implementation?

anjovi wrote:Maybe change 'Taboo' to 'Special options'

Or just remove the name. It's for Designers not Players so why have something that may need translating?

Hmmm… I'd quite like these maybe as Player and Wizard King 'Strategic Spells' as there aren't really any except for the Banish Spell and the Player's default 4. If that makes sense? If Stackable Taboos were added & the Player is doing rather well then the Wizard King could cast additional 'Player only' Taboos to make the battles harder. Hmmm… not sure what you make of that? But on first glance I quite like the sound of it.

this could be a big thing...next on list could be...
3)player has attack spell and equipment spell taboo when vs-ing undead wizard

It'd probably be strong enough to allocate it as one of the 8 reinforcements a wizard lord gets.

So for example, the lord could only get 7 mercs because they have 1 taboo for the player
or they can only get 6 mercs because they have 2 taboos
...probably set a max of taboos to 2-3 so it isn't too crazy.

Then for the player, you could give totems taboos as an upgrade spell, and give totems a limited selection of taboos to choose from like they do spells. Could give them a bit more power when vs-ing marauders.